#7: The woman who has tried everything (and why nothing worked)
There's a specific kind of exhaustion that lives in your body. The kind that doesn't go away with sleep, that doesn't lift with coffee, that settles into your bones and makes you wonder if you'll ever feel truly rested again.
You know this exhaustion. You wake up with it. You carry it through your day. You take it to bed with you at night.
And you've tried to fix it. You've really tried.
You've done the therapy, read the books, listened to the podcasts. Maybe you've hired the coach, taken the course, joined the program. You've worked on your mindset, set boundaries (on paper, at least), practiced gratitude, built the morning routine.
You've done everything you were supposed to do. Everything that should have worked.
And yet here you are. Still tired. Still anxious. Still feeling like you're going through the motions of your life without actually being fully present in it.
Here's what nobody told you, what none of those books or programs explained: you've been trying to solve a body problem with mind solutions.
The real problem
Every strategy you've tried has been aimed at changing your thoughts, shifting your beliefs, reframing your patterns. And all of that has value. Your exhaustion lives in your body, though. Your anxiety is a body experience. That feeling of disconnection, of watching your life happen from somewhere outside yourself? No amount of positive thinking will touch it.
You've been living outside your body for so long that you've forgotten what being fully inside it actually feels like.
I know that might sound strange. What does it even mean to live outside your body? But think about it. When was the last time you truly felt your feet on the ground, not just thought about them? When was the last time you took a breath and actually felt it move through your entire body without your mind immediately jumping to the next thing on your list? When was the last time you felt an emotion without instantly trying to analyze it, understand it, or make it go away?
Most of us can't remember. We've been living up in our heads for so long that it feels normal. We think this is just how life is.
Your body has been trying to tell you otherwise.
What your body is carrying
That chronic tension in your shoulders, the kind that never really goes away no matter how many massages you get? Every time you said yes when your body wanted to say no lives there. Every truth you held back. Every moment you made yourself smaller to keep the peace. Your shoulders are carrying what you couldn't express.
The knot in your stomach, the way your digestion suffers when you're stressed, the nausea that shows up in certain situations? Your body is trying to tell you what your mind keeps rationalizing away. Your gut knows things your brain hasn't caught up to yet. It knows when a situation isn't right, when someone isn't safe, when you need to speak up or walk away. You've been taught not to trust that knowing, to be rational instead of instinctual, to give people the benefit of the doubt. And your belly bears the weight of that disconnection.
The shallow breathing, the way you sometimes realize you've been holding your breath without knowing it? Your nervous system is stuck in survival mode, never quite sure when it's safe to fully relax, never quite sure when it's safe to let your guard down and truly exhale.
All of this is what your unprocessed life looks like when it gets stored in your body instead of moved through it.
The cost of staying disconnected
Living disconnected from your body comes with a price that compounds over time.
The intimacy you crave feels impossible because you can't be fully present even when you desperately want to be. How can you connect deeply with another person when you're not even connected to yourself?
The clarity you need to make good decisions stays perpetually out of reach because you've lost access to your body's wisdom, to that gut knowing that used to guide you before you learned to override it.
The rest you're desperate for never truly comes because your nervous system never receives the signal that it's safe to let go. You might lie down, you might close your eyes, yet your body stays vigilant, waiting for the next demand, the next crisis, the next thing you need to handle.
The joy and pleasure you're seeking remain elusive because you can't fully feel them when you're not fully in your body. Even the good moments pass you by because you're experiencing them from a distance, through the filter of your thoughts rather than the fullness of your senses.
Why the other work fell short
And this is why everything else you've tried has only worked partially, or temporarily, or not at all.
Mindset work tells you to change your thoughts, and that has its place. When your nervous system is dysregulated, when your body is stuck in fight or flight, positive affirmations are like trying to plant a garden on concrete. The seeds might be good, yet they have nowhere to take root.
Boundary work teaches you what to say and how to say it, and that knowledge matters. When you can't feel the full-body "no" rising up from deep in your gut, when you can't sense that visceral resistance to what doesn't serve you, those boundaries crumble the moment someone pushes back or gets upset. Boundaries are sensations you feel and honor, spoken aloud.
Self-care routines offer you tools and practices, and those can be nourishing. When you're still living in your head even while you're in the bath, when you're disconnected from the actual sensations of warmth and relaxation, that self-care turns into just another item on your to-do list. Another thing you're doing because you think you should, rather than being truly present with the experience.
None of these approaches are wrong. They're incomplete without the foundation they require.
The foundation that's been missing
Coming home to your body is the foundation that everything else needs to actually work.
When you're inhabiting your body, truly living inside it rather than observing from outside it, everything changes. You don't have to convince yourself you're worthy because you feel your worth in your bones, in your cells. It shifts from a thought you're trying to believe into a knowing that lives in you.
When you're connected to your somatic truth, to what you're actually sensing and feeling, boundaries are no longer words you practice in the mirror. You feel the "no" rising before you have to think about what to say, and that felt sense is so clear, so unmistakable, that honoring it flows naturally rather than requiring effort.
When your nervous system is regulated, when your body genuinely feels safe, rest is no longer earned or scheduled. You can allow it, sink into it the way your body was designed to do.
When you can feel your emotions moving through your body instead of staying stuck in your head analyzing them, processing opens up. Healing opens up. True presence opens up.
The question
What if everything you've been searching for in all those books and courses and programs has been waiting inside your body all along?
What if your exhaustion is an invitation to listen?
What if your anxiety carries information you've been trained to ignore?
What if that feeling of disconnection is a natural consequence of living in a world that taught you to value thinking over feeling, doing over being, productivity over presence?
What if coming home to your body is the missing piece that makes everything else you've learned actually work?
In the next post we'll explore what your body has been trying to tell you and why those messages have been so hard to hear.
Your practice
I want to give you an experience of what it actually feels like to be fully in your body, even if just for a moment.
Stop reading. Put your phone down if you're on it. Uncross your legs if they're crossed. Plant both feet flat on the floor.
Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. Close your eyes if you're somewhere you can do that comfortably.
Take a slow breath in through your nose, letting your belly expand into your hand. Hold it gently for a moment. Then exhale through your mouth, letting the breath carry sound if it wants to. A sigh, a hum, whatever wants to come.
Do this three times. Just three breaths where your only job is to feel. Feel your hands on your body. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the rise and fall of your chest and belly. Feel the air moving in and out.
You might notice that this feels unfamiliar. You might notice your mind wanting to rush back to thinking, to planning, to the next thing. You might notice resistance or emotion or absolutely nothing at all.
Whatever you notice is perfect. You're not trying to achieve anything or feel a certain way. You're simply practicing the radical act of being present in your own body.
This is what coming home feels like. And you can return to this simple practice any time you feel yourself drifting back into your head, any time you need to remember what it's like to actually inhabit yourself.
